‘The Bachelor’ Finale Power Ranking: Love Has Lost Its Meaning And We All Lose
We have a lot to talk about.
At its best, reality TV has the capacity to truly unite us — whether that involves workmates happily plotting ways to sauté Heston Bluementhal’s face on a morning coffee run after Masterchef (adult life is different than I thought it’d be, hey) or friends camping out on the steps of the Sydney Opera House to cheer on a young muso and a confused farmer from Condobolin after they used all their credit on text votes (lol 2003).
It’s sport for people who don’t like sport. It gives us heroes and villains and imbues the inescapable mundanity of everyday life with melodrama. It warps real, fully-formed people with careers and friends and families into carnival mirror caricatures of themselves (does this image of themselves linger over their reflection forever, who knows?). And sometimes, when producers do their job just right, it makes us lose all understanding and faith in the concept of human romance.
Who would have thought the union of these two Topshop mannequins could be so controversial?
LET’S DO THE POWER RANKING.
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Alex (5 points)
Most women get to spend their last week on this show soaking up whatever final dumb luxuries Channel Ten want to throw at them while sipping champagne and coaxing the Bachelor into picking them with increasingly deep and unsettling pashes. Not Alex! Though she did score a free trip to Indonesia, it mostly consisted of her sitting in mud and being forced to densely explain the woes of parenthood to a sentient Fisher Price doll stuffed with fairy floss.
Alex raises concerns about the wellbeing of her child.
Richie thinks bunny-hopping on his bike is real good.
Alex repeatedly points out she’s “not the easy choice” for Richie because she lives in Melbourne and has a child, while he has a noted history of chucking women when they display the slightest hint of independence or critical faculty (Olena, you were too good for any of this). She then gets treated to a meeting with Richie’s mum Kate who agrees with her entirely.
Despite being a single mum herself, Kate views Alex’s child as definitive proof she is a witch who is luring her sweet and gentle boy to certain death. How did she even create this human life? Is this all because he’s in need of Richie’s organs? What is this foul fertile beast planning to do with her cardboard child’s soul? Kate’s face becomes frozen in time as she mentally transmits images to Richie of the eligible girls at the local RSL.
“I will pull your ovaries out in your sleep.”
“Ha ha, this journey is a constant and unbridled joy.”
There is no closure to any of this. Richie starts fumbling around with the idea of “being man enough” to raise a child as Alex swallows hard lumps of anxiety behind an unmoving grin. The meeting only ends as Kate starts scouting the shore to find a suitable cliff to push Alex off so she can prove to Richie she can fly.
After this, Alex tries to rekindle some basic civility by reading Richie the terrible poem from the first night they met and telling him she loves him for the first time. Richie says “that’s beautiful” and hugs her which — fuck, ouch.
But then… out of nowhere, she is the winner and I am shrieking and this whole thing has been a lie.
Richie, content with the illusion he has had any control in this game.
Maybe she is a witch, I genuinely do not know.
MONEY. DICK. POWER. Well played, buddy.
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Nikki (2 points)
The best way of describing Nikki’s last few days on the show are to say they were the exact opposite of Alex’s.
While Alex was trying to negotiate the complex details of her child’s future safety and happiness in a rice paddy, Nikki was laughing and screaming about how good life was on a fucking lilo flying across a picturesque beach. While Alex was getting publicly shamed by a middle-aged stranger on national TV, Nikki was getting two new aggressively blond best friends. Though she copped a few words about the 12-year-long relationship she just got out of (lol, we’re at the end of the season and I didn’t even know about this), Nikki got the all-clear from Richie’s mum and sister. I’m pretty sure the trio immediately set up a Facebook group chat to plan the wedding.
“Shhh, you are my child now.”
Richie encouraged this too. He went on about how beautiful and unflappable she was, picked her up for movie-style smooches, and went on a romantic helicopter ride to a monkey park… all before abruptly dropping her, briefly asking “u k?”, then shuttling her off back to her home which is now awkwardly close to his own.
I know it’s a game. I know all this is made in the editing. I know that so much is staged. But this was the most savage TV I have ever seen in my life. If Nikki had fallen in the volcano they flew over I would have been less surprised than I was in seeing her get dumped. At the beginning of last night’s episode I would have more readily accepted that she was going to be torn apart by Balinese baby monkeys, than she lose out to Alex.
Richie’s last desperate plea to avoid confrontation.
To her credit, Nikki held it together well. Despite likely being as shocked as the audience, she was gracious and kind and ultimately loving towards the cup of lukewarm milk which had just broken her heart on national TV. She still gets two points in this ranking, because let’s be honest, she’s better off without him.
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Richie’s Mum (1 point)
I’m sorry but has anyone checked on Kate? Did she walk directly into the sea, arms full of baby photos of her precious blond sack of flour? Is she now a convicted murderer? It’s entirely likely she’s still sitting in that chair by the beach, bolt upright, her face in a sullen grimace, steely against the cool sea breeze.
Someone please send help.
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The People of Australia (0 points)
With Nikki the definitive audience favourite — and us having invested WAY too many fucking hours in this whole thing and now finding any outlet to complain about that fact — her loss has hit us particularly hard. We feel for Nikki. We wanted this to be Sam and Snez all over again. More than anything, we want our time back.
PLEASE @TurnbullMalcolm IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO INTERVENE
DO YOU WANT TO BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY???#TheBachelorAU
— dan debuf (@dandebuf) September 15, 2016
I want to be happy for Alex but I am now a hollow shell of a human and love doesn't exist #TheBachelorAU
— Keegs (@keegs) September 15, 2016
#putyourrosesout love is dead ? pic.twitter.com/xiiDacvsCf
— Sass Neill (@beyourbird) September 15, 2016
But while the outrage rages on (until The Bachelorette starts up in five minutes time), it’s worth remembering a few things. First of all: they’re real people. Abusing them via their personal social media is definitely not okay and former Bachelor contestant Sam Frost has proven the harm that kind of behaviour can have on people’s mental health. Have your say, sure, but let them live their weird carnival mirror lives in peace.
Secondly: it’s… it’s at least a little bit fun, right? I feel for Nikki and I’m devastated that this dumb show has seemingly brought her real pain. But if the goal of a reality TV show is to create a sense of community, to give us a renewed investment in stupid shit and pull overblown emotions from us like teeth, then this is definitely one for the history books.
This is actually more of a robbery than 2003 Australian idol #TheBachelorAU #TeamNikki
— Guy Sebastian (@GuySebastian) September 15, 2016